At Your Side
by DoctorStonegarden
Summary: The Dragonborn through the eyes of their comapanions, with input from other NPCs.  T, just in case of delicious fight scenes and whatnot later.
1. Faendal I

I first saw him at the west gate of Riverwood with an Imperial soldier hanging from his shoulder.

It was the middle of the day.

Old Hilde had been screeching about a dragon or some such. No-one believed her at the time.

Frodnar was running up and down with that mongrel of his at his heels.

The _tink,__tink,__tink,_ of Alvor at work in the forge hummed through the quiet air of the village.

Hod and Gerdur were busy in the mill behind me, logs buzzing through the saw blades.

And me?

I was gazing at the beautiful Camilla Valerius, occasionally stopping to chop some logs, as I was paid to do.

Ah, so beautiful. So delicate. Like a mountain flower!

Fitting, since Riverwood lies in a mountain valley. But she was a city creature; a native of Cyrodiil, not meant for the quiet village store life her brother had dragged her into.

There she was, standing under the porch of the trading post, being serenaded by that oaf, Sven. Damn the fool and his sub-standard lute playing.

Could he shoot the wings off a butterfly from fifty paces? Could he track wolves and deer on the highest slopes of Skyrim?

No. All Sven can do is pluck his lute and sing that awful ballad about swaggering and heads rolling around on the floor over and over again.

I digress.

Just as the desire to take up my bow and put an arrow between Sven's shoulders surfaced in me, _he_stumbled through the gate, with that soldier – what was his name? Hadvar, I think – on his arm.

He had red hair. Not flame red, or autumn leaf red, or the burning brown of auburn, or any fanciful colour that only people of song possess; his was the colour of rust in the light of the setting sun, a not-brown, but never mistaken as such, for the dark coppery gleam of every strand caught even the dimmest light. It was short, but thick and wavy, despite the best efforts of any comb.

And given what he had just been through, I was hardly surprised that his hair was a little messy.

He had a strong jaw and a neat, square chin, covered by dark, omni-present stubble.

His brows dipped and rose like leaping salmon, dancing independently and endlessly.

And his eyes were blue, with a hint of tempered steel.

Hadvar's leg – I noticed there was a sizeable bite at the knee – finally gave out, and the soldier collapsed.

His rag-dressed companion caught him and set him down gently on the road, as the smattering of townspeople took notice and gasped.

The _tink_from Alvor's forge halted abruptly as the blacksmith ran over to his wounded cousin.

Hadvar's companion summoned some glowing wisps of magic to his hands and passed them over his wound. The bite on his knee began to stitch itself back together, as the magic did its work, leaving just an angry crimson scar and most likely a nasty twinge or two.

And just like that, as soon as the mage in rags and the wounded soldier had appeared, they hastened into Alvor's house by the forge, and were not seen until the next day.

**X**

The second time I saw him, it was in the dead of night.

I had been lounging on the riverbank by the mill, taking the occasional potshot in the moonlight at a small herd of elk on the opposite bank that kept coming back to lap at the chill mountain waters, seemingly oblivious to the twang of my bowstring.

My luck was rotten that night, distracted as I was by thoughts of a fair maiden, so some time shy of midnight I decided it was time to turn in.

Making to cross over the road and cut behind the trading post – where my beloved laid her head – I glanced, for no particular reason, up the street, towards the Whiterun road.

There stood the mage in rags, though he had since dispensed with his rags and acquired a belted tunic and some sturdy boots.

A flickering orb of magic sat in his outstretched palm, curling and growing as he whispered at it, until he casually tossed it onto the stones before him.

A glimmering sphere of purple sprang up and then faded, leaving something unexpected behind.

The ghostly, flickering form of a conjured heron stood before him.

It nodded, and flapped lazily into the night air at unnatural speed, to the north-east.

He turned, and saw me gaping at the retreating blue speck.

Even in the dark, I could see his eyebrow disappearing into the clouds.

A rectangle of light from Alvor's house fell into the street, and he stepped into it, shutting out the world and the strange burdens it was about to heap upon him, if only for one more night.

**X**

The third time I saw him, he was standing on the road outside the forge, talking to Alvor.

Hadvar, out of his armour and looking far better than when I had seen him last, stood beside his cousin, leaning on a stout length of wood, leg bandaged tightly.

I was suddenly seized by an irrational urge to speak with the mage, no longer in rags.

Done conversing with the blacksmith, he shouldered a satchel not unlike an apothecary's, and strode over to the Riverwood Trader – and my beloved.

"Excuse me!" I hailed him.

Frowning, he turned to face me, a questioning eyebrow raised.

"Could you please give this to Camilla Valerius? Tell her it's from Sven." I attempted a devious smile.

He took the proffered thrice-folded note, and flicked it open.

A harsh bark of laughter passed through his plump lips, which then thinned into a knowing smirk.

In an accent I could not place, he asked of me: "Love troubles?"

I nodded dumbly, unable to find the words beneath his appraising ocean-steel gaze.  
>I got the feeling that had I conjured anything remotely coherent he would have known exactly what I was going to say before I even knew what it was I was going to say.<p>

"I've seen Sven around." He continued, casting his cool eyes over the fake letter once more, "Someone should tell him to tune his lute."

I nodded again, smiling.

He smiled back, eyebrows twitching, warm but guileful and ever so wise and knowing.

"I will help you. It's what I do."

With that, he turned and strode into the trader's, and I felt a small chill run up my spine at those words, which slipped out of his mouth as though he was used to saying them, as though this was something he did every day.

But the slight gravity behind that sentence, the way in which he spoke those words, the imperceptibly grave enunciation, belied his true nature.

This was a man who knew what it meant to change the future.

For all I knew, he might have altered the course of a war or two. Perhaps ended one. Or started another.

And this man was about to irrevocably change my love life.  
>For the second time, I felt that chill.<p>

So when he stepped out of the trade post and winked, grinning rakishly, I gave him a pouch of septims and asked him for his name.

Shrugging, he simply said, "_Martimus_," and vanished over the river, towards Whiterun.

For the third time, I felt that chill.

_**A/N;**___So to put it simply, this is a view of my Skyrim character through the eyes of my companions. May include more than one PC other than Martimus. After all, three Dragonborn are better than one.

Next up, probably more Faendal. Or perhaps Lydia. Maybe Vigilance or Meeko. I haven't decided.

- Doc'


	2. Onmund I

Not so long ago, on a day just like this one, I'd stood before this archway and the mage that guarded it while the snow swirled around, having blundered blindly through a blizzard, lost and cold and guided by what a priest or a cynic would – in differing tones of voice – call the will of the gods, and Martimus would call bloody good luck.

Martimus.

Where was he now?

He'd set off about a week before in plain travelling clothes, apparently on some undisclosed errand to Cyrodiil. Knowing Martimus, he probably just wanted to see if he could actually get across the border; for anyone else, crossing the closed border to the Imperial Province would be impossible, but Martimus, Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, Champion of Meridia and others he did not name, thrice-renowned master of magics, scoffed at the impossible.

One thing that was impossible, however, was a break any time soon; just as Faralda had guarded this bridge when I had sought entry, I did too.

Unless you like spending a few hours every night stamping your feet and watching a road that nobody is going to come down on the off-chance that someone does, never, _never_, bet against Enthir at anything.

So I stood there, bored and cold, waiting for something to happen; and then something did.

A bluish glow and a faint, almost crystalline humming caught my eye and ear.

From snow-shrouded skies came a spectral heron, borne on ghostly winds of magic.

Martimus's familiar.

It landed before me, flickering, and my breath caught in my throat.

Martimus was never one for fiddling with spells and inventing anything; but of his few creations, this truly was the most useful.

Rather than simply summoning your familiar to bite something to death as most did, it could be put to any number of purposes; more than once, I'd seen him use his ghostly heron to deliver messages, which seemed to be its purpose now.

_Hello, Onmund!_

Martimus's velvety tones issued forth from the apparition, sounding cheerful but strained. Trouble, then.

_I know it's you, because if the weather's still like it was when I left, then that means Enthir's not been able to get down to the Frozen Hearth, which means he's betting on everything to which 'contest' can be applied, which means you won't have been able to resist throwing your coin in, which means you'll have been landed with his night shifts on the bridge for a month._

Perceptive didn't even begin to apply to our dear Arch-Mage.

_And if you're not Onmund… then never mind._

_To cut the story short; I was in the mountains near the border, and got caught by an Imperial patrol. Haha. Because this is the short story, details aren't important; I escaped, and now I'm in a quaint little village in the mountains South of Whiterun with nothing but the clothes on my back and the hospitality of a grateful blacksmith._

_Suffice to say, I need help._

_Where I'm going, I'll need to be as wizardly and impressive as possible; with all due haste, your Arch-Mage requests that you retrieve his robes, his staff, his sword, and the small box of trinkets he keeps in the display case next to his wardrobe; once those items have been retrieved, he would be ever so grateful if you would proceed to the humble village of Riverwood – South of Whiterun, remember – as though your very life depends upon it – which in the near future, it might._

_Ta-ra!_

I did the only thing you can do when your greatest friend – never mind superior – sends you a request for aid in the middle of the night.

I ran to do as my friend bade, but my mind ambled back to the time we met, and the times we shared within the College's walls.

**X**

Having passed the test – casting a simple magelight – to get past the gatekeeper, – Faralda, the College's Master Destructor, no less – I reported to Mirabelle Ervine, the Master Wizard. Having been given my novitiate robes – which were indeed more to my liking than my current clothes – and a room in the Hall of Attainment, I proceeded to my first lesson in the Hall of the Elements – the primary location for lectures, practice sessions and meetings – where I got my first true magic lesson from old, kindly Tolfdir, who was to become something of a mentor to me.

And standing at the edge of the hall, watching our first lesson with a raised eyebrow, was Martimus.

If Tolfdir was everyone's befuddled-but-wise grandfather, then Martimus was everyone's helpful big brother.

You know; the kind who makes wisecracks about your crush on the pretty Dunmer across the hall but then sabotages the annoying Khajiit next door's attempts at seducing her; who leaves the answers to tomorrow's test on the application of elemental salts in binding atronachs on your desk because you've been up all night practicing telekinesis and haven't been able to revise; the kind who knows how to get on everyone's good side – Drevis Neloren is always happier when he's told he's invisible, Nirya is less likely to gossip about you if you're willing to nod along to her bitching for an hour, and so on.

I was barely past my twenty-first summer when I arrived at the College; I still don't know how old Martimus is, but he's not more than three years older than me, and was younger than I when he arrived.

Faralda was – as when I had come – guarding the bridge the day he arrived, and had possessed some doubts; she'd seen a scrawny, fresh-faced, slightly nervous aspiring wizard in plain travelling clothes, not the talented, self-taught, confident adventurer he proved himself to be.

Oh, yes, he was talented and powerful both already when he arrived.

It was useless to keep him as a novitiate, so he rapidly switched his green and tan robes for an apprentice's blue and grey, then swapped those for the brown of a fully fledged Adept of the College, and then to the dark green of an Expert Wizard.

And there he stayed, until after I came, and that whole Eye of Magnus fiasco.

**X**

"What do you think, Martimus? You haven't said anything yet."

Martimus uncrossed his arms and strolled casually over to Tolfdir, stroking his carefully cultivated stubble in mock-thought.

"Well," he said, mock-seriously, eyebrows meeting the ceiling, "Safety should be more important than anything."

Tolfdir grinned beneath his beard.

"Well, as our theme today is _safety_, I think we should practice Warding. Wards are protective spells that absorb magic. I'll teach you all a Ward, and then we'll practice! Martimus, would you care to demonstrate?"

The rust-haired wizard shrugged and stepped over to the eye-and-star seal of the College upon the floor.

Standing sideways on and raising an arm, a rippling field of magic spread outwards from his splayed palm.

"Hit me, Tolfie!"

Tolfdir attempted a grimace, but the edges of his mouth quirked upwards beneath his beard.

"You certainly deserve it, with that tongue of yours."

Martimus let out a short bark of laughter, which was abruptly cut off as a sizeable fireball exploded against his Ward, the bright explosion concealing him for a moment.

The light faded, and there he stood, unmoved, a faint semi-circle of scorched flagstones around him.

"I said hit me, not try to kill me!"

Tolfdir grunted, and turned back to we three apprentices.

"Of course, none of you will be hitting each other quite as hard as that. Safety first, remember? Now, start practicing, and we'll try again at the end of the lesson."

Of course, the smarmy Khajiit – J'zargo – appropriated the pretty Dark Elf – Brelyna – with something whispered and flirty, and went over to the other side of the Hall, leaving me alone.

At least, until I felt a strong hand clasp my shoulder.

Martimus grinned at me.  
>"That's the problem with apprentices, you see. There aren't any new ones for ages, and then three come along at once. Isn't that right, Tolfdir?"<p>

Tolfdir, who was already rubbing his beard and staring at the ceiling, muttered something vaguely affirmative.

"Looks like you're working with me, then!"

Given that I had just been acquainted with a man who would become a living legend, I probably should have said something a bit more groundbreaking than, "Sure."

**X**

"…I prefer to jump out of the way, myself, but there's no denying that a Ward will one day save your life if you practice enough."

"They're very draining, though. It seems hardly practical!"

Martimus just grinned at me again.

"Exactly! Once you get stronger and perfect your technique, they're much more efficient. Until then, learn to dodge. Now, see how long you can hold it up."

I had barely enough time to raise my Ward again before a stream of crackling lightning came sparking from Martimus's outstretched hand, tugging and sizzling over the rippling blue field of protective magic.

Eventually, though, my strength gave out, and the Ward shattered with a tinkle like glass breaking, sending me staggering.

"A whole minute this time! You're getting better, Onmund."  
>Something deep in my chest uncurled and soared with the praise of a man who I already had a feeling was destined for so much more than teaching a runaway, wannabe mage a few tricks.<p>

**X**

It turned out that Martimus's room was right next to mine, down in the Hall of Attainment.

"Getting settled in?"

I turned from where I was examining the skull that rested on the dresser in my room to see a familiar, friendly smile and the body attached to it leaning against my door.

"It's good to finally be away from my family!"  
>It wasn't a lie.<p>

Martimus detached himself from the archway that led into my room, and sprawled languidly in the other chair on the opposite side of the bed without invitation.

"That bad?" He asked, with a cocked head and a raised eyebrow.

"No… they weren't bad to me. Just overbearing. They wanted me to take up a sword or a plough instead of the arcane arts."

"So typical Nords, then?"

I shrugged. "That sums it up."  
>He leaned forward in the chair, uncrossing his legs and steepling his fingers beneath his nose, suddenly poised and elegant and sharp instead of a messy sprawl of limbs and robes.<p>

"On the subject of stereotypes, I think you could be an excellent Alterer; you've got the mindset for it. All Nords do. It's the practicality of it, I think. But if your display with Warding today is anything to go by, you could be a good Restorationist."

I quirked an eyebrow back at him.

"I thought Tolfdir teaches the apprentices?"

Martimus snorted, and switched eyebrows, going back to his casual sprawl.

"True. Eventually you'll learn from the other Masters as well, and maybe choose a specialty. But there's nothing in the rules against learning from another student."

I crossed my arms, and turned to face him fully, trying and failing to out-do him on the eyebrow front.

"And why should I want to learn from you as well as the Masters?"

I put a small amount of mirthful challenge into the sentence; I'd already made up my mind, and he knew it, but we'd started so we may as well finish.

He smiled, crooked and dirty, and sprang up from his chair.

"Because you're impatient to learn. Because you're young and so very eager to fill your little head. Because you want to take yourself further, further than the Masters will for a long while yet. Because you want to impress the lovely Brelyna before J'zargo steals her away. Because Tolfdir won't let Faralda teach you how to set fire to things for at least another two months."

Damn. Talk about perceptive.

Then he shrugged.

"And because having an apprentice seems like fun."

"So… I'm your apprentice?"

Another shrug.

"If you like."


End file.
